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JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



His Speeches at Home. 

1880. 



COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY C. S. CARPENTER 




ONEONTA, N. Y.: 

C. S. CARPENTER, PUBLISHER. 

1880. 



Copyrighted, 
1880, 

Bv C. S.. CARPENTER. 



E. M. Johnson, Printer. 
Oneonta, N. Y. 



. 'or 2.3 



PREFACE. 



Profoundly impressed with the true greatness of James 
A. Garfield, and regarding his non-partizan speeches 
between the date of his nomination and election for Presi- 
dent, rare samples of thought, logic and composition, we 
liave compiled all such public utterances, and hand them to 

the public. 

Old men will value these speeches for the evidence they 
bear of the Nation's present greatness ; young men will 
draw from them inspiration and courage for the future ; 
soldiers will be reminded of their own valor and the 
patriotism of a leader ; business men will find many good 

suo-gestions ; mechanics will read feeling words from one 

11 
who knows all about the every-day labor of life ; scholars 

will find a peer in all that pertains to learning and culture ; 

foreigners will observe the liberality of America, and note 

the sympathy of her twentieth President. 

^ ^ C. S. C. 

Thanksgiving Day, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



The Possibilities of Life. 

The Teachings of a Soldiers' Monument 

The Immortality of Ideas. 

Commercial Travelers. 

Army Comrades. 

The Country and City. 

German Citizens. 

The" Future of "Colored Men. * 

Colored Jubilee Singers. 

First Voters. 

Principles in Business. 

Proud of his Congressional District. 

The Friendship of Constituents. 

Neighbors and Friends. 

A Busy Day at Mentor. 

Teachers and Students. 

Acknowledgment of a Gift. 

On the Eve of Election. 

The Elpxtokal College. 






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THE POSSIBILITIES OF LIFE. 



June 25th, General Garfield attended the commencement 
exercises of Hiram (Ohio) College, of which institution he 
was for many years President, and addressed the students 

as follows : 

Fellow Citizens, Neighbors and Friends of many 
Years— It always gives me pleasure to come liere and look 
upon these faces ; it has always given me new courage and 
new friends. It has brought back a large share of that 
richness that belongs to those things out of which come the 
joys of life. While I have been sitting here this after- 
noon, watching your faces and listening to the very inter- 
esting address which has just been delivered, it has occurred 
to me that the best thing you have that all men envy— I 
mean all men who have reached the meridian of life— is 
perhaps the tldng you care for least, and that is your leis- 
ure : the leisure you have to think ; tlie leisure you have to 
throw the plummet around the deptlis and find what is 
below ; the leisure you have to work about the towers of 
yourselves and find how strong they are or how weak they 
are, and to determine what needs building up, and how to 
shape it that you may be made the final being tliat you are 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF LIFE. 

to be. Oh ! these hours of building ! If the superior 
beings of the universe would look down upon the world to 
find the most interesting olyject, it would be the unfinished, 
unformed character of young men and young women. 

Those behind me have probably in the main settled such 
questions. Those who have passed into middle manhood 
and middle womanhood are about what thev shall always 
be, and there is little left of interest or curiosity as to our 
development ; but to your young unformed natures no man 
knows the possibilities that lay treasured up in your hearts 
and intellects, and while you are working up those possi- 
bilities with that splendid leisure, you are the most envied 
of men and women in the world. I congratulate you on 
your leisure ; I commend you to keep it as your gold, as 
your wealth, as your means, out of which you can demand 
all the possible treasures that God laid down when He 
formed your nature and unveiled and developed the possi- 
bility of vour future. 



THE TEACHINGS OF A SOLDIERS' 

MONUMENT. 

On the 3d of July, General Garfield spoke at Paines- 
ville, Ohio, the occasion being the dedication of a soldiers' 
monument. He said : 

Fellow Citizens— I cannot fail to respond on such an 
occasion, in sight of such a monument to such a cause, 
sustained by such men. While I have listened to what m\ 
friend has said, two questions have been sweeping through 
my heart. One was, what does the monument mean ? and 
the other, what will the monument teach ? ^ Let me try, and 
ask you for a moment to help me to answer, " What does 
the monument mean?" Oh, the monument means a world 
of memories, a world of deeds, a world of tears, and a 
world of glories. You know, thousands know, what it is 
to offer up your life to the country, and that is no small 
thing, as every soldier knows. Let me put the question to 
you for a moment. Suppose your country, in the awful 
embodied form of majestic Law, should stand before you 
and say, " I want your life ; come up here on this platform 
and offer it." How many would walk up before that ma- 
jestic presence and say, " Here am I ; take this life and use 
it for your great needs." And yet, almost two millions of 
men made that answer. And a monument stands yonder 
to commemorate their answer. That is one of its meanings. 
But, my friends, let me try you a little further. To 
give up life is much ; for it is to give up wife, and home, 



THE TEACHINGS OF A SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. 

and child, and ambition, and all — almost all. But let me 
test you a little further. Suppose that majestic form should 
call out to you and say, "I ask you to give up health, and 
drag yourself, not dead, but half alive, through a miserable 
existence for long years, until you perish and die in your 
crippled and hopeless condition. I ask you to volunteer 
to do that." This calls for a higher reach of patriotism 
and self-sacrifice. But hundreds of thousands of our sol- 
diers did it. That is what the monument means also. 

But let me ask you to go one step further. Suppose 
your country should say, " Come here, upon this platform, 
and in mv name and for my sake consent to become idiols ; 
consent that your very brain and intellect should be broken 
down into hopeless idiocy for my sake," how many could 
be found to make that venture ? And yet thousands did it 
with their eyes wide open to the horrible consequence. 
And let me tell you how. One hundred and eighty thou- 
sand of our soldiers were prisoners of war ; and auiong 
them, when death was stalking, when famine was climlnng 
up into their hearts, and when idiocy was threatening all 
that was left of their intellects, the gates of their prisons 
stood open every day if they would just desert their flag 
and enlist under the flag of the enemy ; and out of one 
hundred and eighty thousand not two per cent ever received 
the liberation from death, starvation, idiocy, all that might 
come to them ; but they endured all these horrors and all 
these sufferings in preference to deserting the flag of their 
country and the glory of its truth. Great God! Was 
ever such measure of patriotism reached by any men upon 
this earth before! That is what your monument means. 
By the subtle chemistry that no man knows, all the blood 
that was shed bv our brethren, all the lives that were thus 



THE TEACHINGS OF A SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. 

devoted, all the grief and tears, at last crystalized itself 
into granite and rendered immortal the great truths for 
which they died. And it stands here to-day, and that is 
what yonr monument means. 

Now, what will it teach? What will it teach? Why, I 
remember the story of one of the old conquerors of Greece, 
who, when he had traveled in his boyhood over the battle- 
fields where Miltiades had won victories and set up 
trophies, returning, he said : " These trophies of Miltiades 
will never let me sleep." Why? Something had taught 
him from the chiseled stone a lesson that he could never 
forget. And, fellow citizens, that silent sentinel that crowns 
yon granite column will look down upon the boys who 
shall walk these streets for generations to come, and he 
will not let them sleep when the country calls. More than 
the bugler on the field, from his granite lips will go out a 
call thit the children of Lake County will hear after the 
grave has covered us all and our immediate children. 
That is the teaching of your monument ; that is its lesson. 
It is the lesson of endurance for what we believe. It is 
the lesson of sacrifice for what we love; the lesson of 
heroism for what we mean to sustain; and that lesson 
cannot be lost on a people like this. 

It is not a lesson of revenge ; it is not a lesson of 
wrath. It is the grand, sweet lesson of the immortality of 
a truth that we hope will soon cover, like the Shechinah 
of light and glory all parts of tliis Republic from the lakes 
to the gulf. I once entered a house in old Massachusetts 
where, over its door, were two crossed swords ; one was 
the sword carried by the grandsire of its owner on the field 
of Bunker Hill, and the other was a sword carried by the 
Eno-lish grandsire of the wife on the same field and on the 



THE TEACHINGS OF A SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. 

other side of the conflict. Under those crossed swords, in 
the restored harmony of domestic peace, lived a family 
happy, contented and free under the light of our Republi- 
can liberties. I trust the time is not far distant when, 
under the crossed swords and the locked shields of Ameri- 
cans, North and South, our people shall sleep in peace and 
rise in liberty, and love, and harmony, under our flag of 
stars. 



THE IMMORTALITY OF IDEAS. 

August 6th, a soldiers' monument was dedicated at 
Geneva, Ohio, with imposing ceremonies. General Gar- 
field, after some introductory remarks, said : 

Fellow CixiZENS^Ideas are the only things in this uni- ^ 
verse that are immortal. \ Some people think the soldiers 
are chief! ly renowned for courage ; that is one of the 
cheapest and commonest qualities. We share it with the 
brutes. I can find you dogs and bears and lions tliat will 
fiarht, andfiofht to the death, and will tear each other. Do 
you call that warfare ? They are as courageous as any of 
our soldiers were, if brute courage is what you are after. 
The difference between them and us is this : the tigers 
never hold reunions to celebrate their victories when they 
have eaten the creature they have killed. That is the only, 
is the only reunion they ever hold. Wild beasts never 
build monuments over their slain comrades. Why? Be- 
cause there are no ideas behind their warfare. Ideas are 
immortal if they be true. We build monuments to them. 
We hold reunions not for the dead, for(there is nothing on 
all the earth that you and I can do for the dead.^ They are 
past our help and past our praise. We can add to them 
no glory and we can give to them no immortality. They 
do not need us, but forever and forever more we need them. 
The glory that trailed in the clouds behind them after their 
sun had set falls with its benediction upon us who are 
living, and it is to commemorate the immortality of ideas 



THE IMMORTALITY OF IDEAS. 

for which they fought, that you assemble to-day and dedi- 
cate your monument that points up toward God, who leads 
them in glory of the great world beyond. And around 
those ideas, under the leadership of the immortality of 
those ideas, we assemble to-day, reverently to follow, rever- 
ently to acknowledge the glory they achieved, and the ben- 
ediction they left behind them. 



COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. 

On the 3d of September, fifty commercial travelers, 
representing every leading mercantile interest, assembled 
on the lawn in front of Gen. Garfield's residence. Tiie 
gentlemen were accompanied by their wives. Gen. Garfield 
addressed them as follows : 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen— -I can hardly 
say that you have taken me by surprise, for I was informed, 
some days ago, that a party of commercial gentlemen from 
Indiana would call upon me to-day; but 1 am very pleas- 
antly surprised at the large nund^er of ladies and gentle- 
men who have honored me by this visit. I have listened 
with deep interest to the address of your chairman, and I 
give you, one and all, my thanks for the compliment which 

this visit implies. 

Your chairman informs me that you represent nearly 
all the leading branches of commercial industry in the 
State of Indiana, and some of the neighboring States. Few 
of our people understand how vast are the enterprises rep- 
resented by our internal trade. Almost every form of 
human labor contributes its products to the trade that fills 
our thoroughfares and supplies our communities with the 
necessaries of life, and are all moved by the grand main- 
spring—labor. Permit me to illustrate its magic powers. 
Eighty-four years ago a company of forty-two surveyors 
landed at the mouth of Conneaut Creek, a little stream 
that marks the boundary between Pennsylvania and Ohio. 



COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. 

They landed on the 4th day of July, 1796, and begun 
their work by celebrating our National Independence. 
There are many now living who were boys in their teens 
when this company of surveyors began their work. At 
that time, from the Pennsylvania line to Detroit, hardly a 
smoke ascended from a white man's cabin. The Western 
Reserve was an unbroken wilderness. Three millions of 
acres had just been purchased from the State of Connecti- 
cut, for fortv cents an acre. To-day, the Western Reserve 
furnishes happy and comfortable homes to more than three- 
fourths of a million of intelligent people. Except a French 
settlement, the State of Indiana was itself an unbroken 
wilderness, but is now a great and prosperous community, 
and thousands of miles beyond yon prairies the wilderness 
and mountain slopes smile with peace, prosperity and the 
attendant blessings of civilization. 

What has wrought this wonderful transformation? The 
magical power of human labor through manifold struggles 
and dangers, through suffering and blood. These blessings 
have been secured to us, and, I trust, will be continued to 
our children's children. I venture to notice another fact. 
Every stroke of the axe, every blow of the hammer, every 
turn of a wheel, every purchase and sale, in short, every 
effort of labor, is measured by the standard of value fixed 
and declared by National law. I congratulate you, as 
commercial men, that your Government has at last restored 
to its people the ancient standard of value, and has made 
it possible for our people everywhere to secure the blessing 
which bountiful harvests and prosperous times have brought 
them, by placing our National finances on the solid basis of 
specie values. This fact forms no inconsiderable part of 
the security with which the great business transactions 



COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. 

of the Nation are carried on, and you, as its representa- 
tives, as well as the laborers of the land, are sharers of 
these benefits, and this security. Ladies and gentlemen, 
accept iny most cordial thanks for your visit. I welcome 
you to my home, and to the kind greetings of my family. 



ARMY COMRADES. 

On the 22iid day of September, the Association of the 
Army of the Cumberland met in Toledo. General Garfield 
was present, and in an address, among other things said: 

Mr. President and Comrades — I am sure there is not 
one of you here to-night that does not feel the inspira- 
tion of the evening, does not recognize that you are better, 
brighter, tenderer, and truer for having sat here the last 
hour and heard these strong words of Union sentiment : the 
glorious inspiration, the poetry and beautiful recitation 
given us all. The best war is horrible, but to have known 
what you have known, to have seen what you have seen, to 
have felt the inspiration as you have felt, as part of your 
service in the war, is a bitter moment in your life that you 
can never fail to recognize. Glance around at the names 
on this gallery. There is not one of them that does not 
bring out with light and tire tlie old recollections. To have 
known some of these men who are named here was a lib- 
eral education in itself. To have known Phil. Sheridan's 
horse yonder, was to make a great acquaiutance, of large 
inspiration, l)ut to have known Phil, on his horse, was to 
have an epitome from the glory of war, and the sublimity 
of victory. These are some ot the meanings that this niglit 
teaches me, and make me rejoice to be here wiili my old 
comrades again. But then, as we glance around this circle 
of names there comes down to us the information that one 
by one they are dropping out from^the list of the living. 



ABMY COMRADES. 

but yet are seen as stars in the firmament of national glory. 
Less than a year ago the Army of the Caraberland and its 
deliberations were presided over by one who is among the 
dead — that brave and noble comrade of ours who presided 
around the statue of Thomas, left us only a few weeks after 
he gave us the hand of farewell. One by one, rapidly they 
are going. It becomes us to gather these glories into our 
hearts, to bind up into a small sheaf the glory and friend- 
ship of those who live together, into the garland of our his- 
tory, to the glory of those who are gone. 



THE COUNTRY AND CITY. 

Late in September, the Northern Ohio Fair was held at 
Cleveland. General Garfield and Ex-Governor Bishop 
were there ; also the Lieut.-Governor and several Repre- 
sentatives in Congress. There were present about 40,000 
people, and several able speeches were made. Mr. Garfield 

said : 

Mr. Prestdext and Gentlemen — While Gov. Bishop 
was speaking of the exhiljition of thrift and prosperity rep- 
resented on these grounds, I was thinking of the forces at 
work in this country which are silently but powerfully af- 
fecting the relations between two classes of our population. 
All who have thoughtfully considered the reports of the 
national census during the last thirty years, have observed 
the great growth of our cities and the comparatively small 
growth of population in our agricultural districts. The 
tendency of civilization is toward the city and away from 
the countrv. Let me ask vou to reflect whether this is a 
ffood indication. I have time to notice but one feature of 
the problem. A careful study of the men who have won 
distinction in every field of activity, public and private, 
professional and commercial, will show that a large major- 
ity of them were born and bred in the country. 

Examine the roster of all our professions, civil and mili- 
tary ; recount the men who achieved distinction in the first 
fields of manufacture and commerce, and you will find that 
far the larger number were country born boys, whose early 



THE COUNTRY AND CITY. 



manhood had touched the soil and drawn health and vigor 
and inspiration from the forces of nature, which play with 
freshness and freedom in the green fields of the country. 

Gentlemen, would you willingly see the present brilliancy 
continued until the majority of our people are inhabitants 
of great cities ? If the tendency must prevail, there is one 
way to mitigate its evils, and that is by bringing the city 
and country into closer bonds of sympathy. 

This brings me to the chief significance of this fact. 
This great and growing city of the lake has opened her 
arms to the country, and annually invites the people who 
till our fields, dig in our mines, and work in the country 
shops, to come among you and bring with them the fruits 
of the land, and the products of their skill in return. You 
show them the accumulation of city industry and culture. 
This interchange is beneficial to both, and especially advan- 
tageous to the residents of the city. 

I am sure that the many leaders of the commerce and 
trade of Cleveland, who were reared in the country, are 
refreshed and invigorated by the reminder of their youth 
which this fair gives them. They remember the rock from 
which they were hewn, the soil on which they grew, and 
are better and stronger for the remembrance. In this fair 
the city and country shake hands in renewed friendships, 
and recognize anew their dependence upon each other. 



GERMAN CITIZENS. 

Ox the IGtli of October, 500 German residents of 
Cleveland found Gen. Garfield " at home." After formal 
ceremonies had been finished, the General spoke as 
follows : 

Gentlemex — I am very glad to see you here and re- 
ceive your words of welcome and these words of earnest 
patriotism. I have caught some of the inspiration of the 
speaker's thought, though not all, but enough of it to make 
me know the heartiness of your greeting, and be able to 
thank you for it from a full and cordial heart. Your chair- 
man has been pleased to refer to a remark I once made, 
when speaking of the death of an eminent German mem- 
ber of Congress, that it was a mistake in one sense to call 
him a foreigner, because, as I said, all English-speaking 
people drew their old traditions from and found their first 
fatherland in the forests of Germany. And it was so when 
two thousand vears ag:o that bodv of travelers and bold 
pioneers crossed the German ocean to aid in the struggle 
on the island of Britain. When the ruddy, strong, yellow- 
liaired, the blue-eyed Saxon came, they planted the princi- 
ples of Teutonic liberty in England — and an old writer, of 
centuries ago, said that the constitution of Great Britain 
came from the woods of Germany. Our branch of the 
family is the earlier branch, the elder brother. You have 
come later to join us — younger sons of modern Germany, 
to meet your older brother in the ncAV world, because you 



GERMAN CITIZENS. 



love larger liberties and opportunities and greater aspir- 
ations. Not many generations ag9 our fathers were 
foreio-ners. Prom the Teutonic races, from the Latin— 
fronrall races of Europe, the best clement,* mingle here, 
and like any other alloy of metals, it makes a stronger 
result than any one of the parts alone. We are better for the 
mixture. Your chairman quoted a line from your great 
poet, Herder, in which he said that to go into a foreign 
land' there could be no worse thing than to be a German. 
It was never true on this continent. If even in American 
madness it was true twenty-five years ago, it ceased long 
ago to have anv truth in our modern America. You rep- 
resent in your fatherland the old remarkable traditions ; 
and I know your own hearts have been stirred by the event 
that occurred, onlv a few days ago, on your own Rhine, 
when the magnificent catliedral at Cologne, which has been 
630 yeafs in building, the scaffolds hardly down for a day, 
was just brought to its final con,plotion and dedicated ior 
peace. It has lived through all dynasties-it has ived 
throuo-li all religions, througli all reigns and througli all 
vvar3,"to be dedicated at last by Kaiser William to peace 
. and glorious memories of Germany. That is a wonderiul 
thin"- for you to have a share in. But I trust, fellow 
citizens, that vou have come here to help us build a gra^ider 
temple-not a gothic building made from quarries of the 
Rhine, but made out of the hearts and lives, aspirations 
and hopes of all people who have come into this country 
to make it their home, and build here institutions that shall 
not, I trust, be finished in six hundred years from to-day, 
but shall go on with its grand structure always rising, its 
foundation always deepening, its dome always high and 
always free for all people who come here to be Americans 



GERMAN CITIZENS. 

and dwell with U8. To all such people the genius of 
America speaks in the language of another German poet 
— the great Norvalis : 

"Gieb treulicli mir die Hande 

Sei Bruder mir und wandle 

Den Blick vor dinem Ange 

Nicht weetes weg von mir 
Im Tempel wo wir knieen 

Ein Ort wohim wir ziehen, 
Ein Zweck fm* das wir gelm 

Ein Himmel mir und dir." 

Such is the welcome that America gives to all people. 
I thank you for this call to-day, fellow citizens ; thanks for 
your kindness, and I conclude by saying, " Wilkommen 
alle." 



THE FUTURE OF COLORED MEN. 

October 25th a delegation of 250 colored men visited 
General Garfield. In response to an address by their 
chairman, the General said : 

Gentlemen— I have listened carefully to what your 
speakers have said ; 1 have noted your manifestations of 
applause at the special points of their remarks. All the 
time— not now while the speaking has been going on, but 
the time since the great struggle for equal rights in this 
countrv culminated in war-I have studied your problem 
with no little solicitude. It was a difficult problem, not 
for you only, but for us, and equally difficult for the men 
who latelv held you in slavery. 

Of all" the problems that any nation ever confronted, 
none wa^ever more difficult than that of settling the great 
race question which your existence upon this continent 
brought to our people, and settling it on the basis of broad 
justice and equal rights to all. It was a tremendous trial 
of the faith of the American people, a tremendous trial ol 
the strength of our institutions. It was not for your sake 
alone that the thoughtful men of this country struck slavery 
and said it must die. It was certainly a good reason wiiy 
slaverv ought to die that it wronged your race ; but it was 
an equally good reason why it should, die, because it was 
dangerou^ to the peace and prosperity of the white race, 
and to the stability of the Republic. We are always in- 
clined to express too much sympathy with the man who 



THE FUTURE OF COLORED MEN. 

suffers wrong ; that is right, but we ought also to express 
anxious solicitude for the man who does the wrong, for in 
one very important sense he is more to be pitied than the 
victim. If a man murders you without provocation your 
soul bears no burden of the wrongs, but all the angels of 
the universe will weep for the misguided man who com- 
mitted the murder. And so I say the men who enslaved 
your race were wronging themselves as well as you. To 
protect them from being wrong-doers, and shield your race 
from suffering wrong, was the mighty problem which was 
solved by the abolition of slavery. 

Now, fellow-citizens, after the fierce struggle of ihe 
war, after Lincoln had given utterance to the great thought 
that the centuries of slavery had committed so great a sin 
that without the shedding of blood there was no remission, 
and that our war was the bloody -expiation for that sin, 
even then, when you were free by the proclamation of 
Lincoln and by the amended Constitution that gave you 
citizenship, your problem was not solved. What is free- 
dom without the intelligence to use it wisely ? What is 
freedom without virtue and intelligence combined to make 
it not a curse, but a blessing? You were not made free 
merelv to be allowed to vote, but in order to enjoy an 
equality of opportunity in the race of life, and to stand equal 
before the law. Permit no man to praise you because you 
are black, nor wrong you because you are black. Let it 
be understood that you are ready and willing to work out 
your own material salvation by your own energy, your own 
worth, your own labor. All that liberty can do for you is 
to give you a fair and equal chance within the limits of the 
constitution, and by the exercise of its proper powers it is 



THE FUTURE OF COLORED MEN. 

the purpose of the best men on this continent to give you 
this equal chance and nothing more. 

I congratulate you on the great advance which your 
race has already made under liberty. I have seen your 
representatives in Congress — one of them in the Senate — 
and I have seen them behave with such self-restraint, good 
sense, judgment, modesty, and patriotism, that it has given 
me new hope that all their brethren will continue to climb 
up toward the light with every new opportunity. I will 
not affect to be any more your friend than thousands of 
others. I do not even pretend to be particularly your 
friend, but only your friend with all other just men. On 
that basis and within those limitations, whatever can justly 
or fairly be done to assure to you an equality of oppor- 
tunity, it will always be my pleasure to do. So, gentlemen, 
I thank you for coming here, and shall be glad to greet 
everv one of you. 



COLORED JUBILEE SINGERS. 

Early in the dav, October 1st, the Fisk University 
Jiil)ilee Singers (colored), of Nashville, Tennessee, called 
on General Garfield and his family. After a pleasant 
interview, and when abont to depart, the singers turned 
toward General Garfield and sang an impressive benedic- 
tion, with these words : " The Lord be with you ; the Lord 
guard and ; reserve you ; the Lord lift up His countenance 
upon you. and give you peace." There was silence for a 
time, as the music died away. Then General Garfield, 
who had stood by the mantel with bowed head, spoke to 
the band of singers very earnestly and solemnly, saying : 

My friends, for my family and myself, I thank you for 
this visit, and for the songs you have sung. While I have 
listened, a thought has come to me which may encourage 

you, 

A voice has gone forth before every great good that was 
ever achieved in this world. A voice in the wilderness 
was the herald of our Saviour. In the war for the Union, 
the thunder of our guns on a thousand l3attle-fields was the 
voice that prepared the Avay for the liberty that came to 
your race. 

Now, friends, the earthly savior of your people must be 
universal education ; and I believe that your voices are 
preparing for the coming of that blessing. You have sung 
a great university into being. You have sung before kings 
and princes. You have sung to the meek and the lowly. 



COLORED JUBILEE SINGERS. 

You liave sung to the hearts of your people ; and 1 hope 
and believe that your voices are heralding the great liber- 
ation which education will bring to your lately- enslaved 
brethren. You are fighting for light and for the freedom 
it brink's ; and in that contest I would rather be with you 
and defeated, than against you and victorious. In the lan- 
guage of the song you have just sung I say to you, " March 
on, and you shall win the victory, you shall gain the day." 



FIRST VOTERS. 

The First Voters' Garfield and Arthur Battalion, of 
Cleveland, numbering about four hundred, found General 
Garfield at home on the eighth of October. In answer to 
an address, the General said : 

Mr. Chairman and Young Gentlemen — This is no or- 
dinary event in the historv of anv man — indeed, in the 
history of any people — when, as I am told, there are 400 
young men here who have made this journey, not for any 
personal purpose, but to express that great, general, ear- 
nest purpose that arises in the hearts of active, intelligent 
young men, when they first grapple with the great questions 
of their country. I know of notliing quite like this in our 
history. With all the pleasure it brings, I am bound to 
say it brings a little disenchantment to me in this. Always 
to this time I have been accustomed to consider myself a 
young man. If, before your arrival, anybody had raised 
the question, I should have asserted, with a good deal of 
indignation, if anybody had denied it, that I myself was a 
young man. 

But thev tell me vou are to cast your first National vote 
at a Presidential election. If that is so, young man as I 
am, I voted before any of you were born. If you are 
young, and voters, borrowing the language of Rip Van 
Winkle, when he awoke from that long sleep, '* Who in the 
world am I?" I must have passed the very flush of youth, 
at least. But, young gentlemen, I have not so far left the 



FIRST VOTERS. 

coast of youth to travel inland, but that I can veiy well 
remember the state of young manhood, from an experience 
in it of some years, and there is nothing to me in this 
world so inspiring as the possibilities that lie locked up in 
the head and breast of a young man. The hopes that lie 
before him, tlie great inspirations around him, the great 
aspirations above him, all these things, Avith the untried 
pathway of life opening up its difficulties and dangers, 
inspire him to courage and force and work. It is a spec- 
tacle that the very gods would look down upon in ancient 
Roman days with more than ordinary interest. 

Now, let me say a single word or two in answer to this 
great kindness and compliment of your coming to my house, 
about some of the thoughts that I know get into the hearts 
of young men and inspire them, and some delusions that 
are likely to get into their minds. Let me speak of one 
delusion that I think, from the remarks of your chairman, 
vou are not likelv to have. It is a delusion that affects all 
men, more or less, particularly the young men — the delu- 
sion that good things and great things are some way oif 
yonder, away abroad. 

As to our country, let us not get any such delusion into 
our heads. I know all about abroad. I know what it 
is to enlarge our minds by it. But I want you to feel, in 
the depths of your heart, that there is no abroad in all this 
world that is half equal to the glory of being an American 
here at home and to-day. Right here, in this yard, is a 
splendid specimen of American sovereignty, the roof and 
crown of this world of sovereignty. Enlarge it into the 
million of men who vote, and you have the grand, august 
sovereign of this last and best born of time, the American 
Republic. Now that the sovereign shall be unshackled 



FIRST VOTERS. 

• 

forever, that that sovereign shall be unpurchasable when 
he stands at the ballot-box to order the supreme will of the 
Nation, that that sovereign shall be unintimidated by mor- 
tal man when he utters that final omnific word that com- 
mands the continent — that is the great purpose that all 
true Americans should keep in their minds. 

When I see such a band of earnest vouno; men as meet 
me here to-day I feel certain that if they could deploy them- 
selves as a ballot-box guard to defend the purity of the 
American ballot-box, to stand around it as around the 
cradle of our heir-apparent of American sovereignty, such 
guardians, such defenders, will keep the Republic pure and 
keep it free. 

Young gentlemen, your visit to me gives me a compli- 
ment of the highest sort, and while it disenchants me, as I 
said a little while ago, it still reaches the hand of youth out 
to me, which I take with all cordiality and earnestness ; 
and for your tendered support to me, which is not for my 
sake, but for the sake of the cause of which I am now the 
representative, I give you all the thanks of which my heart 
is capable. The house is small, the farm is small, the town- 
ship is small, the county is a small one, but all there is in 
it to give of generosity, and hospitality and welcome — all 
that is in my hands to give — is yours while you stay. I bid 
you welcome to all there is of us, gentlemen. 



PRINCIPLES IN BUSINESS. 

On the 14th of October, an excursion party filling thir- 
teen cars went to Mentor, under the auspices of the Cleve- 
land Republican Business Men's Club, to congratulate Gen- 
eral Garfield on the result of the October elections. George 
H. Ely, President of the club, made a speech, to which 
General Garfield responded as follows : 

Mr. Ely and Gentlemen of Cleveland — This is a 
new situation, and new sensations and suggestions arise 
with it. I should be altogether unworthy of this State and 
of my native county if I did not feel deep sensibility at this 
expression of your confidence in me, and at this greater, 
more significant expression of your understanding of what 
the great contest now pending in this country means in its 
relation to our prosperity. You are business men of Cleve- 
land, and that means a great deal ; you are citizens of Ohio, 
and that means more ; you are citizens of the Republic, 
and that means a great deal more, and in your three-fold 
capacity I greet you and thank you for this demonstration 
of your confidence. Let me speak a moment about these 
three thoughts. You are business men ; suppose, not this 
yard full alone, but all the business men of America were 
assembled together, what would they do? Rather, what 
would they not do, if they got from the eternal powers an 
insurance policy that four years to come there siiould be 
no disturbance in the great forces that play upon the busi- 
ness prosperity of this people? The power that could 



PRINCIPLES IN BUSINESS. 

underwrite such a policy to you would call from you more 
sacrifice in a mere business sense than you ever made under 
any circumstances. Now no such guarantee will be given 
you by the supernatural powers, but while frosts, pestilence, 
tempests, and all the great accidents that come to us with- 
out our power to prevent it, are beyond our reach, yet 
there is a great political organization in this country that 
can give you a policy, underwritten by its faith and in its 
own hand, ao-ainst all the evils that can come to you from 
bad legislation and the reckless Avickedness of bad finance. 
For such a business insurance the business men of Cleve- 
land and the business men of America are manifestly will- 
ing to make some effort and be at some sacrifice, and that, 
I take it, is the business meaning of this assemblage here 
to-day. 

Now, the second thought I had was, you are citizens of 
Ohio, and vou are livins; illustrations of the first children 
of the pioneers who planted Ohio. When your fathers 
were born Ohio was unknown, except as a trackless wil- 
derness, and vet where the smoke from not a dozen white 
men's cabins ascended to the sky in all this territory, now 
three and a quarter millions of happy people, prosperous, 
honorable, and successful, are living and guiding the des- 
tinies of a people as great in numbers and wealth as all 
who inhabited the thirteen colonies when our fathers won 
their independence. What a spectacle is that ? And all 
this prosperity was won by the simple, plain, straightfor- 
ward process of downright hard work. That was what did 
it. Labor first laid out the raw materials that God made^ 
and then capital, which is only another name for crystal- 
ized labor saved up, protected and saved by the strong 
arms of equal and just and honest laws. Now that is Ohio. 



PRINCIPLES IN BUSINESS. 

Well, now there is a third and a larger thought. Proud 
as you are of what you have been and Avhat you have done 
for Cleveland, for Ohio, yet your pride rises at a little 
piece of bunting, a flag with stars and stripes upon it. 
That speaks of a great continent with a Government that 
covers it from sea to sea, from the lakes to the Gulf, and 
that you as citizens of that Republic have a right to walk 
on every foot of it as the equal of any man that lives any- 
where, and that the score of black men that I see here and 
there have just as good a right as the whitest of us all. 
Now, these are the thoughts that come to me as I look upon 
these Cuvahoo-a faces. You are in the midst of a great 

%/ CD 

contest, gentlemen. On that contest, on the struggle of it, 
on the issue of it, on my relation to it, I say nothing. 
For the time being I am out of politics, but I am with you. 
And now, gentlemen, I thank you for coming here, I thank 
you for these wise and earnest words of encouragement 
which your Chairman has spoken, and I thank you for your 
purpose of standing by your faith to the end, let it lead us 
wherever it will, and finally, I hope to have the pleasure of 
taking your hands. 



PROUD OF HIS CONGRESSIONAL 

DISTRICT. 

About two hundred people of Ashtabula, called on Gen- 
eral Garfield, October 22nd. After an exchange of cour- 
tesies, the General spoke as below : 

Gextlemex — I believe you are nearly all, if not all, my 
constituents — that this is a home gathering, a sort of har- 
vest home just after the ordinary harvest, and just before the 
other harvest that somebody will gather in a short time — 
therefore, I feel the utmost freedom in meeting you and 
greeting you. 

We have been in the habit in the old nineteenth district 
for about fifty years past of believing in the existence and 
steadiness of the North star, and we have believed in it in 
cloudy weather when nobody could see a star ; amidst 
clouds and darkness tliis people kept on believing in it, 
until nearly all the world saw the great constellation wheel- 
ing amid its steady and unmovaljle centre. The North 
star, the symbol of freedom, and the equal right of all men, 
has been kept steadily in view by the better people of the , 
Western Reserve these forty years, for a time long before 
these first voters were born ; and these young men who 
were born to believe in it will not be likely to forget it, 
because it now shines plainly in the northern hemisphere. 
To speak without figure, the people of this old nineteenth 
district long ago learned to be content with being right, even 
when they were in an apparently hopeless minority. Your 



PROUD OF HIS CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT. 

speaker has just referred to Joshua R. Giddings. Think 
of the long, hard struggle when he was ostracised by all 
men excepting half a dozen at the National capitol. Denied 
the common civility and friendship of social society ; but 
he believed in the immortality of liberty, fought on and 
fought on, till in his last days he saw them triumph. 

I have never received a compliment that touched my 
heart more deeply than when, after a speecli I made in 
Congress for the same cause, there came from Jefferson, 
the capitol of your county, a letter from the old patriot, 
thanking me that I had taken up his work, and saying that 
I was worthily wearing his mantle. I am glad to meet you, 
young gentlemen, believing you are bound by universal ties 
to be true to those great principles that the Western Re- 
serve helped plant and cherish. 

1 know what the old district has done and what it has 
suffered for its convictions, and I am glad to know that in 
rainy and tempestuous weather, in season and out of sea- 
son, the Old Guard will be found where the banner of free- 
dom points the way to battle. You are welcome here to- 
day, gentlemen, thrice welcome. We are friends, Ave are 
neighbors, we are companions in the common cause, and I 
trust no young man who makes his iirst choice of party 
associations to-dav, will be sorrv for it when he looks back 
from the end of this century to the year 1880. I shall be 
glad to take each of you by the hand before you leave. 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF CONSTITUENTS. 

On the 26th of October, a company of six hundred 
ladies and gentlemen, residents of Trumbull County, in 
Greneral Garfield's Congressional district, waited upon the 
General, and were addressed as foUoAvs : 

Ladies and Gextlemex — You have no idea what it is 
to me to look out upon this circle of faces. There have 
been a good many strangers in this yard in the past two 
weeks. There are some strangers, perhaps, here now ; but 
in this circle, all along its line, there are faces that flash 
back to me the memories of these twenty years past. Years 
full of struggle, full of question, full of events, full of 
friendship, full of victories, full of all that goes to make 
up the life of public and private friendsliip on this Western 
Reserve. You cannot know what strength it brings to me 
to see these friends, who liave stood, not by me alone, but 
by the cause that they believed I represent, and have stood 
by it in a most unselfish, earnest, intelligent, forcible, effec- 
tive manner during all these years. Why, I see men in this 
circle who, in the whole of this long time, have never 
betrayed to me, by any sign or any word, that they had the 
least purpose of their own to serve, but only the purpose 
to serve their country and its best interests, and that their 
friendship for me was largely, if not altogether, because 
they thought I was capable of rendering some service to 
the cause they loved and the country they revered. A man 
with such friendships around him, with such supports be- 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF CONSTITUENTS. 

hind him, would be a very poor piece of timber indeed if 
he did not amount to something. And let me say, out of 
the soil of such hearts as these, out of the forces of such 
people as these, there can grow all that is best in our civil- 
ization and under our institutions. I know not what awaits 
me in the future ; I never discount it so far as it relates to 
myself. 1 never allow myself to be elated with what may 
be, nor depressed with what may be ; l)ut I do say this, that 
I cannot conceive that the time can ever come Avhen the 
friendship of these men that are gathered in this yard to- 
day can be anything but dear to me, and of the greatest 
possible value in strengthening my heart and hope, what- 
ever the field of my work may be. I thank you, gentlemen, 
that on this inclement day, and with all the circumstances 
apparently against it, you have made your way here to my 
home ; that you have formed a circle about it that will not 
disappear when you are gone. It will seem to me in all 
time to come, as I stand upon this portal, that a band of 
my old constituents and friends have left their guardianship 
and love circling about my door. I welcome you as you 
know I could welcome but few other groups of people in 
the world, and I hope you will not go away until I have 
had the pleasure of taking each of you by the hand. 



NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS. 

October 28th, General Garfield addressed a company of 
friends and neighbors, as follows : 

Ladies and Gentlemen — I once read of a man who 
tried to wear the armor and wield the sword of some 
ancient ancestor, bnt fonnd them too large for his stature 
and strength. If I should try at this moment to wear and 
sway the memories which your presence awakens, I should 
be overwhelmed and wholly unable to marshal and muster 
the quick-coming throng of memories which this semi-circle 
of old friends and neighbors has brought to me. Here are 
schoolfellows of twentv-eiorht vears ; here are men and 
women who were my pupils a quarter of a century ago ; 
here are venerable men, who, twenty-one years ago, in the 
town of Kent, launched me upon the stormy sea of political 
life. I see others who were soldiers in the old regiment 
which I had the honor to command, and could I listen to 
the touchino- and thouo'htful words of mv friend, the vener- 
able late Chief-Justice of Ohio — who has just spoken, with- 
out remembering that evening in 1861 of which he spoke 
too modestly — when he and I stood together in the old 
church at Hiram and called upon the young men to go forth 
to battle for the Union and be enlisted before they slept, 
and thus laid the foundation of the Forty-second regiment. 
How can I forget all these things, and all that has followed ? 
How can I forget that twenty-five years of my life were so 
braided and intertwined with the lives of the people of 



NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS. 

Portao-e county, when I see men and women from all its 
townships standing at my door? I cannot forget these 
thino'S while life and consciousness remain. No other 
period of my life can be like that. The freshness of youth, 
the yery springtide of life, the brightening on to\yard noon- 
clay — all were with you and of you, my neighbors, my 
cherished comrades. In all the relations of social, student, 
military and political life and friendship, you are liere, so 
close to my heart, that I cannot trust myself to an attempt 
to recall these memories with anything like coherence. I 
know that my neighbors and friends in Portage county 
since the first day of my Cono-ressional life haye neyer sent 
to any convention a del^iiate who was hostile to me ; that 
through all the storms of detraction that roared around me 
the members of the old guard of Portage county have never 
wavered in tlieir faith and friendship, but have stood an 
unbroken phalanx with their locked shields above my head 
and have given me their hearts in every contest. If a man 
can carry in his memory a jewel more precious than this, 
I am sure Judge Day has never heard what it is. 

Well, gentlemen, on the eve of great events, closing a 
great campaign, I look into your faces and draw from you 
such consolation as even you cannot understand. What- 
ever the event may be, our past is secure, and whatever 
may befall me hereafter, if I can succeed in keeping the 
hearts of Portage county near to me, I shall know tluxt i 
do not go far wrong in anything, for they are men who love 
the truth for truth's sake, far more than they love any man. 

Ladies and gentlemen, all the doors of my househohl are 
open to you. The hand of every member of my family is 
outstretched to you, our hearts greet you, and we ask you 
to come in. 



A BUSY DAY AT MENTOR. 

Thursday, the 30th of October, was a busy day at " Lawn- 
field " and Mentor. The first to arrive were 150 iron- 
w^orkers from Youngstown, Ohio, with a band, and wearing 
badges, with "329" on their hats. General Garfield ad- 
dressed them as follows : 

Gentlemen — I am glad to meet you to-day. I remember 
with pleasure the long line of events that have united us 
during the eighteen years we have known each other. 
While the last gentleman was speaking, on behalf of his 
associate iron-workers of the Mahoning Valley, it brought 
to my mind something which I read many years ago in a 
A^erv interestinfr old book. The writer was enumerating 
the points of contrast between man and the lower animals, 
and among them was this : " Man," he said, " is the only 
animal that makes tools for his own use." In following out 
that thought, I think we mav fairlv sav that the tools which 
a people use are probably as good an index of their intelli- 
gence and civilization as any that can be found. We dig into 
the mounds of forgotten tribes and nations and find their 
tools and implements of stone ; later of copper, then of 
bronze, of iron and of steel. If we had all the specimen 
tools of all the tribes and nations of the earth arranged in 
order before us, we could probably determine with great 
accuracy the grade of civilization of each generation. 

I do not say that it is the whole business of civilization 



A BUSY DAY AT MENTOR. 

to make tools, but the tools of a people are the indexes of 
the civilization of those who make and use them. The men 
who stand before me are largely engaged in making tools 
for America, or in manufacturing the materials out of which 
these tools are made. Your daily work is, therefore, allied 
to the civilization of your country. It was the purpose of 
the founders of our government so to develop and educate 
our people that they should be able to make their imple- 
ments of peace and war, so that if we w^^re at war with 
the rest of the world we could by our skill clothe and equip 
ourselves, and make all the tools and machinery for our 
own use, without drawing on other nations for a single 
hammer stroke. Now, that is to me the significance of the 
business that you are engaged in. I have never thought 
it was a sufficient reason for asking the Legislature of the 
Nation to make laws merely to let any one class of citizens 
make more money, but when the industry which any of our 
citizens are eno:a2:ed in is the one that the whole Nation 
needs for its defence, and for the growth and development 
of the people, then every man so employed is doing a great, 
National, patriotic work, which the government should 
protect and defend for the good of all. On that large Na- 
tional ground every blow you strike is a blow in defence of 
the inde})endence of your country and the well being of all 
its people. 

Gentlemen, I am glad to see this company of iron-workers 
— my old constituents and friends. I welcome you here 
and I appreciate your coming all the more because you 
have come so far and in such an inclement season. You 
are very welcome, and I shall be very glad to greet each 
one of you. 



A BUSY BAY AT MENTOR. 

Wayne and Ashland Counties sent about 500 people with 
bands of music. There were many ladies present, and 
Mrs. Garfield was very hospitable to them. In response 
to a speech, General Garfield said : 

■ Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Citizens — To know 
that this company comes in large part from so far away as 
beyond the Western Reserve, on such a day as this, is a 
significant expression of what you mean and feel. To 
know that you come with songs, that you come with hearts 
full of emotion, and minds full of ideas, and principles, and 
purpose, is as much as any company of people anywhere 

could well say. 

I recollect that some writer said, long ago, " Let me make 
the songs of a people, and I care not who makes their 
laws." You are not, perhaps, making the songs of the. 
people, but you are singing the songs of a very energetic, 
intelligent and determined people, and the songs you sing 
are sweeping through the hearts and lives and purposes of 
thousands of people all over this broad land. To have 
you come thus testifying your confidence, your hope and 
your purpose, and singing your songs of rejoicing, would 
be gratifying to any man, and is certainly gratifying to me. 

This is my day of judgment. In a few days it will be 
the day of judgment for all the people, and whatever that 
judgment shall be, like good citizens, we will all bow to it 
and do whatever duty comes to us. I thank you, ladies 
and gentlemen, for this great compliment, and for this 
splendid array which you make in my door yard. I hope 
vou Avill find whatever of comfort and happiness it is pos- 
sible to get out of such a day as this. I thank you and 
welcome vou. 



A BUSY BAY AT MENTOR. 

Afterward, 100 men from the Britton Iron and Steel 
Works, of Cleveland, appeared, to whom General Garfield 
said : 

Gentlemen — I am very much obliged to you. I know 
something about the iron works of Cleveland. It is said 
that Prince Bismarck, one of the ablest men in Europe, had 
for his motto, "Iron and Blood." That is pretty strong, 
but we have for our motto, " Iron, together with all the 
other industries, and liberty." I am glad to see this hardy, 
forceful, earnest body of men. I hope that whatever you 
do will tell in the direction of justice. 



TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. 

On the afternoon of November 3d, the day succeeding 
General Garfield's election as President of the United 
States, seven hundred of the faculty and students of Ober- 
lin College, went to Mentor, for the purpose of extending 
their congratulations. In reply to the Chairman, General 
Garfield said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen — This sponta- 
neous visit is so much more agreeable than a prepared one. 
It comes more directly from the heart of the people wiio 
participate, and I receive it as a greater compliment for 
that reason. I do not wish to be unduly impressible or super- 
stitious, but, though we have outlived the days of the augurs, 
I think we have a right to think of some events as omens, 
and I greet this as a happy and auspicious omen, that the 
first general greeting since the event of yesterday is ten- 
dered to me by a venerable institution of learning. The 
thought has been abroad in the world a good deal, and 
with reason, that there is a divorce between scholarship 
and politics. Oberlin, I believe, has never advocated that 
divorce, but there has been a sort of cloistered scholarship 
in the United States that has stood aloof from active par- 
ticipation in public atfairs, and I am glad to be greeted 
here to-day by the active, live scholarship of Ohio, and I 
know of no place where scholarship has touched upon the 
nerve-centre of public intelligence so eifectually as at 
Oberlin. For this reason I am specially grateful for this 



TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. 

greeting from the Faculty and students of Oberlin College 
and its venerable President. I thank you, ladies and gen- 
tlemen, for this visit. Whatever the significance of yester- 
day's event may be, it will he all the more significant for 
being immediately indorsed by the scholarship and culture 
of Hiy State. I thank you ladies and gentlemen, and I 
thank your President for coming with you. You are cor- 
dially welcome. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF A GIFT. 

A GOLD-HEADED caiie voted to General Garfield in a eon- 
test at the Cleveland Cathedral Fair was formally pre- 
sented to him at Mentor, November 4th, by Father Thorpe. 
General Garfield's reply to the presentation speech was as 
follows : 

Father Thorpe — I receive this beautiful cane from the 
people whom you represent, grateful, not merely that they 
chose me as the recipient, but for the fact that the spirit 
behind the choice was in line with the liberties of this 
country. I receive it as a token of respect from tlie peo- 
ple of my native connty, who have in many ways shown me 
their confidence and regard. 

You have offered it as a significant symbol. I accept it 
with the meanino^ vou have aiven it. The head of gold 
may not unfitly represent the true and solid basis of our 
National specie ; and the strength and stability and beauty 
of the wood that supports it, the strength and symmetry of 
our institutions. I believe it is said that tlie patriarch 
Jacob worshiped leaning on the top of his staff. Our in- 
stitutions are safe so long as our people and Government 
are found leaning upon the staff of solid worth and of pub- 
lic and private virtue. I accept this all the more gladly 
because it comes across one of the lines that divide us relig- 
iously. For in our country a man may adopt whatever 
religion he chooses, or no religion if he prefers. The 



ACKOWLEBOMENT OF A GIFT. 

religion of our people is left to their voluntary choice and 
not to the control of human law. 

I thank you especially. Father Tliorpe, for the kind terms 
in Avhich you have addressed me, and I ask you to bear 
back my grateful thanks to the donors. 



ON THE EYE OF ELECTION. 

On the evening l)ef()re election, General Garfield wrote 
to a Washington friend, among other things : 

Whatever may be the issues of to-morrow, I shall carry 
with me through life most grateful memories of the enthu- 
siastic and noble work my friends have done, and especially 
mv college classmates. The campaign has been fruitful to 
me in the discipline that comes from endurance and patience. 
I hope defeat will not sour me, nor success disturb the poise 
which I have sought to gain by the experiences of life. 



THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. 

On the 2nd of December the Electoral College of Ohio 
waited upon General Garfield, at Mentor, and in reply 
to an address by General Grosvenor, said : 

I am deeply grateful to you for this call, and 
for these personal and public congratulations. If I were 
to look upon the late campaign and its results merely in 
the light of a personal struggle and personal success, it 
would probably be as gratifying as any thing could be in 
the history of politics. If my own conduct during the 
campaign has been in any way a help and strength, I am 
glad. It is not always an easy thing to behave well. If, 
nnder trying circumstances, my behavior as a candidate 
has met your approval, I am greatly gratified ; but the 
larger subject — your congratulations to the country on 
the triumph of the Eepublican party — opens a theme 
too vast for me to enter upon now. 

I venture, however, to mention a refiection which has 
occurred to me in reference to the election yesterday. I 
suppose that no political event has happened in all the 
course of the contest since early spring, which caused so 
little excitement, and indeed so httle public observation, 
as the Presidential election which was held yesterday at 
midday. The American people paid but little attention 
to the details of the real Presidential election, and for a 
very significant reason. Although you and all the mem- 



TEE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. 

bers of the Electoral College had the absolute constitn 
tional and technical right to vote for anybody you chose, 
and although no written law directed or suggested your 
choice, yet every American knew that the august sover- 
eign of this Republic, the 9,000,000 voters, on an early 
day in November, pronounced the omnipotent fiat of 
choice, and that the sovereign, assuming as done tliat 
which he had ordei'ed to be done, entertained no doubt 
but that his will would be implicitly obeyed by all the 
colleges in all the States. 

That is the reason why. the people were so serenely 
quiet yesterday. They had never yet found an American 
who failed to keep his trust as a Presidential elector. 
From this thought I draw this lesson : That when that 
omnipotent sovereign, the American people, speaks to any 
one man, and orders him to do a duty, that man is under 
the most solemn obligations of obedience which can be 
conceived, excepting those which the God of the universe 
might impose upon him. Yesterday, through your votes 
and the votes of others in the various States, it is prob- 
able the returns will show that our great political sovereign 
has laid his commands upon me. If he has done so, I 
am as much bound by his will and his great inspiration 
and purpose as I could be bound by any consideration 
that tills earth can impose upon any human being. In 
that presence, therefore, I stand, and am awed by the 
majesty and authority of such a command. In as far as 
I can interpret the best aspirations and purposes of our 
august sovereign, I shall seek to realize them. You and 
I, and those who have acted with us in years past, believe 
our sovereign loves liberty, and desires for all inhabitants 



THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. 

of the republic, peace and prosperity imder the sway of 
just and equal laws. 

Gentlemen, I thank you for this visit, for this welcome, 
for the suggestions that your presence and your words 
bring, and for the hope you have expressed that in 
the arduous and great work before us, we may maintain 
the standard of nationality and promote all that is good 
and worthy in this country, that during tlie coming four 
years we may raise just as large a crop of peace, pros- 
perity, justice, liberty and culture as it is possible for 
forty-nine millions of people to raise. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 763 293 7 



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